(1912) Study to “Fugue in Two Colors”
František Kupka

Popis

Drypoint on paper (around 1912), 17×22,5 cm, printed signature in the left lower corner, stamped Kupka signature in the right lower corner Sans titre (No Name).
Origin: auction house Prague.
Published in the catalogue Retrospective, František Kupka, 1871-1957, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975.
Exhibited at the French Institute Praha, 14.9.-3.11.2016.
The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s oil on canvas – 56 million CZK in the year 2012, Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, Prague.
The highest price achieved in auction for Kupka´s graphics – 8 thousand USD, Sotheby’s New York.
The highest known price for Kupka´s graphics achieved in gallery sale – 500 thousand CZK in the year 2016, Prague.
This brilliant colour technique is usually designated as the study to The Fugue of two Colours or Abstract composition or Composition. In the catalogue Retrospective it is designated No Name. Kupka, being the follower of Theosophy, believed that the nature is manifested in geometrical structures which are the elements of beauty and that the artists should be able to seek them and find them intuitively. Kupka thought that the Unconscious absorbs various impulses and transfers them subsequently to the conscious mind. By this a new reality controlled by rhythm and harmony is being created. The resulting record (image) should induce the same effects as the music – this is why he named the first abstract images Fugue. He was after the discovery of something between the sight and the hearing; he wanted to create a fugue in colours, like Bach in music. We know – from Kupka´s morphology studies of abstract expression – that this motif was included into Cosmos studies, although he always interfaced various types of abstraction. This graphic sheet has also close relation to images like Localisation of Graphical Movement Powers, Blowing Blues or Animated Lines, in which Kupka´s strive to find the true harmony is obvious.
In the Czech auction houses we can find coloured and black & white prints of this graphics, the last time it was offered in the year 2014.

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